The invention relates to a device for preparing and applying labels and a method of operating said device.
Hand-held labeling machines are already known, using which self-adhesive labels are peeled off from a carrier strip and can be applied to an object. The carrier strip, on which a large number of labels is applied one behind another, is pulled off from a roll and, at the point of issue of the label, is led around a peeling edge. The label is transported further in a straight line, so that its gumming is exposed. At the point of issue of the label, the hand-held machine has transport rollers, with which it is rolled over the object to be labeled. In this process, the transport rollers move the carrier strip further forward, with the result that the label is completely peeled off from the carrier strip on the transport path and is rolled onto the object.
Such a hand-held machine is well suited for the application of price labels to sales articles in a department store, where large quantities of identically inscribed labels have to be applied in an arbitrary position to objects which are identically shaped in each case. By contrast, if individually printed labels have to be applied automatically in a defined position to articles that are differently shaped in each case, such as is the case, for example, in automatic mail preparation systems, the known machine cannot be used.
DE-C-38 31 392 has already disclosed a device for the application of individually printable labels to workpieces. In the case of this device, a carrier strip having a large number of labels applied thereto one behind another is used. A label is firstly, together with the carrier strip, led past a printer. After the printing, the carrier strip is led past a removal point and the label is for the most part separated from the carrier strip by deflecting the latter around a roll of comparatively small diameter. A suction gripper fastened to an industrial robot engages on the label, projecting freely into space, and removes said label from the removal point. Installed underneath the label projecting into space is a removal plate. The latter is intended to make it possible for the label to be picked up reliably by the suction gripper even when the latter has a position tolerance that is typical for such robots, through which the label otherwise would be pressed "downward".
It cannot be seen from DE-C-38 31 392 how in this case the adherence of the label to the removal plate is prevented. In addition, since a label to be removed remains connected to the carrier strip until it is removed completely, the following label can only be printed when the previous label has been removed.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,428,509 discloses a device for preparing and applying labels, in which the latter are peeled off completely from a carrier strip, pressed firmly with gumming pointing downward onto a transport roller having a rough surface and pushed by the latter onto a removal face in the access region of a label manipulator. Although the removal face is provided with ribs aligned in the transport direction of the labels, which are intended to prevent the labels from adhering, this removal face remains stationary in relation to the label while the latter is being pushed on, so that the adhesion that is unavoidably present of the gumming to the ribs must be overcome by the pushing transport roller.